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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720542">Falling Star</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft'>JazzRaft</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Love/Hate, M/M, Romantic Fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:15:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,198</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720542</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ravus is not prone to whimsical desires, not dreams or fantasies. What he does with Noctis is purely practical. How the stars look in his eyes though, is the furthest thing from it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ravus Nox Fleuret/Noctis Lucis Caelum</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Falling Star</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A <a href="https://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/615758579430047744/p-hewwo-if-you-still-can-have-request-please-1">prompt fill</a> for <a href="https://tina-nightray.tumblr.com/">tina-nightray</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ravus did not want to be there.</p>
<p>He didn’t even try to make it a secret. He wanted the whole of Lucis to know of his revulsion, of just how little he was impressed by the Crown City’s extravagant exhibition, meant to awe as much as distract the visiting delegation from any schemes of subterfuge.</p>
<p>The King and his council thought to charm their stiff Nif nemeses with their star-shaped chandeliers and crystal drop trappings. They filled their vaulted ceilings with paper lanterns to divert their gaze upwards – Ravus just didn’t want one of the damn things to fall on his head. They filled their platters with the most lavish sea food – great fists of karlabos claw meat and oysters au gratin and fragrant herb-grilled gar – so perhaps they wouldn’t taste the Lucians’ own deceptions at work. They thought to beguile them with their pretty lights and fanfare smiles, like common pickpocket charlatans on the city’s street corners.</p>
<p>Ravus didn’t care for the flagrant desperation of the whole event. He didn’t care for the rich foods and the blinding lights and the starlight sparkle of the champagne flutes, toasted with even starrier smiles. He didn’t care for Lucis or Insomnia or its traitorous king hiding somewhere in his lofty Citadel. He knew that all of the glitter and grandeur were intended as gifts, but Ravus didn’t accept anything he could just as easily take for himself.</p>
<p>Which was why he claimed the one thing this wretched country would never dare offer. He didn’t need to do much to take it. Noctis gave himself to him, willingly.</p>
<p>“You don’t look like you’re having fun.”</p>
<p>Ravus felt his nose wrinkle on reflex, as if the sound of his voice were as repugnant as a sour smell. He <em>was</em> enjoying the quiet, finally able to find himself a solitary balcony atop this ridiculous hotel that remained unoccupied. Escaping his Imperial entourage was like trying to pry off a rusted bolt, and the Insomnian hosts that wanted to ingratiate themselves to the former Prince of Tenebrae were like pearly toothed leeches trying to latch on and never let go.</p>
<p>Noctis, at least, was less like a leech and more like a needy kitten padding at his heels. His attachment to Ravus was purely symbiotic, rather than parasitic. He could unhook his claws from his coat tails if he needed to, but Noctis was willful enough that he didn’t always leave him alone when Ravus wanted him to, either.</p>
<p>“This is all a bit too loud for my tastes,” Ravus explained, lip curling in a silent snarl as Noctis settled against the balcony.</p>
<p>“Thought it took a lot to impress you,” Noctis sighed, his breath floating above a laugh. “Now you’re telling me it’s too much.”</p>
<p>“It takes very little to impress me.”</p>
<p>“Then why do you make me try so hard?”</p>
<p>Ravus made it a point not to answer. Here was not the place to even imply a discussion about how hard of a bargain he drove with Noctis behind closed doors. There would be time enough to accommodate a fitting answer to that question later, should the damn stars ever decide to consider his schedule. Noctis followed his impatient stare above the city skyline.</p>
<p>“Any minute now,” he assured him, dropping the previous subject.</p>
<p>“You have that on good authority then, do you?”</p>
<p>The Prince’s smile was a secret Ravus had failed to make him tell, in spite of all the pleasurable tortures he’d inflicted on him since they’d signed this unwritten contract between them. Maybe he really did have an accord with the stars. Sometimes Ravus thought he could see them in his eyes, gleaming in the dark blue dilation of his gaze when he was in ecstasy. If he wasn’t careful, they could rend Ravus’ flesh from bone and burn the rest to cinders.</p>
<p>“Do you ever see meteor showers in Gralea?” Noctis asked, folding his arms against the glass partition, looking like there was nothing keeping him from falling into the city below.</p>
<p>“There are no stars in Gralea,” Ravus said, matter-of-factly.</p>
<p>“Oh. Right.”</p>
<p>Noctis dropped his head against his arms, going quiet. Ravus hadn’t noticed how dark the rims of his eyes had looked while traipsing under the shimmering waves of light from the lanterns that lit the hotel interior. He didn’t usually make a point of observing any nuances in the prince’s mood, merely studying the way his body moved throughout a crowded evening. Accommodating feelings had never been a part of their arrangement. Ravus had no idea why he felt the compulsion to accommodate them now.</p>
<p>“There are lights, though,” he said. “Auroras. They’re brightest around midwinter.”</p>
<p>He pointedly did not meet the weary, curious eyes that peered up at him. Ravus stared at the warped rivulets of the Wall rippling across the sky, searching for falling stars. The waves of crystalline light reminded him a little of the auroras, though it was a weak comparison. When he found himself in the frozen wilds of Niflheim, far beyond the mechanical lights of Gralea, the sky ignited with violets and indigos and eerie jade greens. It was the only beauty he could ever find in the Empire. It was the only part of his life there that ever brought him peace.</p>
<p>“That sounds pretty,” Noctis murmured.</p>
<p>“Quite so.”</p>
<p>He glanced at Noctis, meeting his gaze. Ravus didn’t know why he chose to imagine him standing in the snows of Niflheim, his pale skin awash in color as the auroras tangled across the winter sky. Ravus never let himself fantasize. He was not a boy with a head full of romantic notions. He was a commander, a machine for the Empire, and Noctis was merely a tool for him to use when his core processes felt overheated.</p>
<p>And yet, here he stood. Imagining.</p>
<p>Noctis leaned up on his arms, blinking slowly. Ravus remembered reading once how cats did that to express their affection. Often, Ravus wished Noctis were as much of a machine as he was. That he was cold and calculating, using Ravus as much as he was using him. As a tool, for a purpose, as a circuit in need of a reboot, rather than a living creature in need of companionship.</p>
<p>When the stars finally fell, Ravus fell with them, into a kiss he didn’t know how to operate. It was chaste, tender, even, which didn’t factor into any of the rough, wanton equations Noctis measured into. It filled his head with whirling auroras in Noctis’s dark hair, black as the coldest winter nights, and stars tumbling in his eyes.</p>
<p>“These probably aren’t as pretty to you as those are,” Noctis said when he pulled away, turning to the sky like nothing had happened.</p>
<p>The meteors shimmered above the Wall in silver tendrils, quick flits of starlight falling as quickly as raindrops over the city. They burned in fast flashes of light, then faded just as quickly. It was a fleeting sort of beauty, not the kind Ravus preferred in the slow, steady cascades of light across the tundra.</p>
<p>But when he looked at them from Noctis’ eyes, it was rather hard to compare.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Oh thank god, I'm still capable of making ravnoct fluffy. Scared myself for a sec there, whew!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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